41 
ova from a dark female bidentata, which he duly accepted, and the ova 
arrived on June 12th of that year. On arrival I took them under my 
charge until they reached the pupal stage. There were altogether ova 
to the number of 146, these nearly all hatched, according to my notes, 
on June 21st, the rest the next day. The young larvae readily took to 
ash which I put in for them, and I fed them wholly on this food until 
they pupated, at the beginning of September. The pupae were not 
disturbed until March 1901, when I and my brother removed them 
from their cocoons, which were matted together on top of the cocoanut 
fibre, and which made it impossible for the insects to emerge without 
injury to themselves (we always use cocoanut fibre for larvae which 
bury and make subterranean cocoons). Out of 146 ova received from 
Mr. Wigin, 138 had pupated, and these were laid face down on some 
slightly damped fibre, there to await the result of our labours. Early 
in May the first perfect insect emerged, it was almost wholly black, 
and I took it and showed it to Mr. Riches, who exhibited it unset at 
one of the Society’s meetings. By May 28th, the whole batch of pupae, 
with the exception of two, had emerged, and from them 70 of the dark 
nigra form, and 66 of the type were bred, thus breeding a trifle over 
50% dark forms from ova laid by a captured dark female. From these 
I obtained no less than 22 pairings, all of which produced a good 
quantity of fertile ova. Eight of these batches I disposed of, thus 
leaving me with fourteen batches of ova to work on during the year 
1901. They were comprised as follows—(1) four batches of ova from 
typical parents, (2) three batches from nigra 5 and typical $ , (3) 
three batches from nigra $ and typical $ , and (4) four batches of ova 
from ab. nigra parents. 
1. To commence with I will take them in the order above, viz., the 
ova obtained from typical parents. Not having space at my disposal, 
I had to place the whole four batches together, they commenced to 
hatch out on June 5th and continued doing so until the 9th, but only 
about half of the ova proved fertile, showing perhaps that the second 
generation was weaker through inbreeding. I fed these up on ash as 
likewise did I all the others from the different broods. The larvae fed 
up well until they were half grown, but when this stage was reached, 
they commenced to die off in dozens. They were not afflicted with the 
usual choleraic disease, such as often overtakes la rv* when feeding in great 
numbers, but they lay dead on the floor of the breeding cage, stiff, with 
a brownish looking substance exuding from their mouths, leaving a 
stain on the floor of the cage about the size of a pea. Out of some 
hundreds of larvae which I had feeding up, so many died of this curious 
disease that only 77 finally reached the pupal stage. During October 
these pup* were taken from their cocoons and treated as before, and 
although they were kept out of doors, four emergences occurred, three 
of the type, and one dark (nigra) form, during November and December. 
The rest emerged in May, 1902, about their usual time, and resulted 
as follows—fifteen nigra forms, twenty-five of the type, and twenty- 
eight cripples, divided thus, nine nigra forms, nineteen typical forms, 
while nine of the pup* did not emerge. It seems rather strange that 
the dark forms should have been bred from ova laid by these typical 
parents, but when they were originally the offspring of a dark mother, 
it does not strike one as so strange a circumstance. 
2. The three batches of ova obtained from ab. nigra J , with typical 
